Electro-Swing is growing fast appraisal as the newest, most contemporary genre to emerge from Europe in the past few years. Typically a music genre that fuses together Jazzy Swing melodies whilst incorporating more modern elements of House & Techno samples and styles, few UK groups are gaining as much recognition at the moment as the Birmingham-bred Electric Swing Circus. A six-piece formation that involve ground-shattering Electro sounds with their arsenal of instruments including a fretless bass, a gyspy jazz guitar, live drums, keys & synths with an excellent singing duo front known as “The Sisters Of Swing“, this group has already had the priveleges of performing at Glastonbury and Boomtown Festival to name but a few incredible achievements since coming together in 2011. The first question that I asked the guys was if they could give us an introduction to just who they are, and how they’d formed?

“Hello! We are the Electric Swing Circus, Chan, Ellie,Laura,Pat, Rashad and Tom. We all live within a mile of each other just outside of Birmingham city-centre in Moseley.”

“It was all a little random really, we were all mutual friends and jamming together in someones bedroom.”

“We started out trying to make some Electro-Swing. It was so much fun to play and everything just snowballed from there really.”

“We started jamming in the summer of 2011, and our first gig was in September down in London.”

Indeed things have certainly snowballed since only two years prior, for this Summer these guys have performed successfully at some of Britain’s most famed festivals in the emergence of their exceptional ‘Big Ol’ Bite‘ album. I was personally curious as to how long they had been working on the album before it was eventually released in the early month of May?

“Well the songs we have been working on since the start, but we really went into album mode in September 2012 where we started pre-production, recording in October and mixing, programming and arranging through until April of this year.”

So from the start these guys have had inklings of their desired sound, and have continued pushing for a final compilation of brilliance even up until today. I wanted to know how they’d decided upon their setlists, and if they had many memorable stories or highlights from their tours?

“Well we are always writing, so our live show will have some songs you know and maybe some you don’t. We like to vary the shows a bit so they don’t become predicable!”

“Gig highlights… there are so many. Glastonbury was amazing, as was Nozstock this year, particularly when the sun came out and everything looked beautiful.”

“I don’t know where to start, touring around the UK and Europe we get a lot of stories. We are all good friends and have a lot of fun when we are out and about. There are lots of stories, but what happens on tour stays on tour…”

“One of my (Tom’s) personal favourites was Fusion Festival in Germany, when during the breakdown section of ‘Valentine’ the crowd all crouched down ready to jump up for the drop. We didn’t ask them to, they just did it! That was an awesome experience!”

The two times I saw this band perform – at Nozstock & Boomtown Festival 2013 – the crowd reception that they received was phenomenal, and I was curious to ask as to whether this was a regular trait with the numerous audiences that they encounter?

“We have been really really lucky, and at every festival we have played we have had some of the best crowds ever.”

“I think a lot of that is down to our fans spreading the word about our live shows, and we would like to say a massive thank you to everyone who has come to support! So far we have had everyone dancing at every show, and a lot of people jumping up and down too!”

With an emphatic Summer quickly drawing to an end, I asked the group where they can be found for the remainder of the month and what they had left to look forward to?

“Shambala Festival, there we are running our own stage for 4 days, called the Swingamajig Speakeasy – so we put on one day festival called Swingamajig this year that went really well, and it is a chance to explore the speakeasy vibe a little more.”

“There will be loads of crazy stuff going on. We have invited some of our favourite bands to join us, and along with our set on the Chai Wallahs stage we will be playing some secret sets too in the Speakeasy.”

Hopefully their words have given you a much greater insight into this vastly talented group, and has answered most of the burning questions that you undoubtedly had. A fine bunch of people to say the least, it goes without saying that you should definitely make huge efforts to catch one of their renownedly spectacular performances whilst the sun is still shining.

To keep up to date with the Electric Swing Circus for gigs announcements, tour details and information in general, like their Facebook page and be sure check out their Big Ol’ Bite album for yourself available for listening on the links given below: